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Where is Jonathan Vaughters?

It is sort of strange thinking about not hearing from Jonathan Vaughters, what seems like, ages. When I start to think about it, it seems like he sort of fell off the face of the Earth right after Tom Danielson was found to be positive last year. Jonathan used twitter to announce that the Cannondale Team would continue, even though Jonathan had sworn that if one of his guys tested positive that the team would disband. And he sort of has faded away since then.

Maybe I just haven’t been following the Cannondale team enough. Has Jonathan been as active on social media as always? I don’t really use Twitter, so maybe he is a tweeting fiend. I know Velonews did an article on the 2016 Cannondale Team a couple weeks ago, but that is normal media. Jonathan usually creates his own media.

I have to give praise to Jonathan for ejecting Ryder and replacing him with Lawson Craddock. Lawson is the real deal and is going to be great cyclist. Lawson was picked to do the Tour for Cannondale, which is just going to give him more experience to use in the future years.

And what is going on with Andrew Talansky? As if not enough controversy already surrounds the guy, someone decides that he is going to skip the Tour to ride the Vuelta. Let’s back up a bit.

Andrew won the US time trial Nationals last year. Then he beat Taylor Phinney in a 24 minute time trial at the Tour of California a month ago, finishing 2nd to Rohan Dennis. But, Andrew decides to skip the US Professional Time Trial Championships the following week. This pretty much removed his name from making the Olympic team, I’d think. So he goes and rides, and is 2nd with one stage to go. The last day is a mess and he drops to 5th overall.

If Andrew would have ridden the US Time Trial Championships, and done as well as the week before in California, I would have to assume he would have been in the running to get one of the two Olympic spots available. Then he would have gone to the Tour de Suisse, did what he did and ride the Tour. But no, he skips the TT Natz, and then skips the Tour, to prepare for the Vuelta. Seems pretty screwball.

In previous years, Jonathan would have been all over explaining what was up. But with this media blackout deal, silence.

Cannondale just got a new sponsor. Well, not exactly new, but they are merging with the Drapac organization. It might just be happenstance, but he seems to have narrowed his search for cycling sponsors to already existing cycling teams.

I’m not sure whether I like the new quite Jonathan better than the outspoken media Jonathan. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Honestly, I miss he throwing things out there.

28 thoughts on “Where is Jonathan Vaughters?”

As far as Talansky goes, for all we know he could be a complete headcase. Vaughters has stood behind him from the beginning so who knows what their relationship is like in business and on a personal level. Talansky could be depressive, have a legit mental issue, or maybe has gotten too comfortable for too long in his team. It will be interesting to see how his Vuelta goes!

Rich-I’m critiquing their choices, I’m not criticizing Talansky. The guy is okay enough to nearly win the Tour de Suisse, but can’t ride the US National TT Championships, when he is defending champion. He is obviously racing. His choices of races seem really strange to about anyone associated with the sport.

Well, apparently you haven’t been around long enough to have suffered through Vaughters anti-doping PR only to find out….

If JV’s actually involved in running the team, I’m sure a merger with Drapac is very time consuming. Add to that the latest round of reforms by the UCI/ASO that will heavily impact racing behind the scenes and I’m pretty sure there aren’t enough hours in the day.

I have no idea and there’s no way to know who is/isn’t doing whatever. Maybe JV ran/runs a clean-er team. Who knows. And therein lies the fundamental problem with cycling as a spectator sport. Nobody knows if the game is rigged or not.

“Strange” from a purely sporting point of view, maybe. But sometimes personal/familial issues interfere with such things (regardless of what kind of form one is carrying at the moment). “Sorry mom, I can’t make it to dad’s funeral, I have good form and I can’t waste it.” Seems obvious that whatever Talansky’s issue is his decision to skip the tour would have been a difficult decision and one not taken lightly.

Concerning Vaughters: It’s very time consuming to integrate the engine drive to new Dura Ace. They just weren’t given enough advance access, and the Tour is on the doorstep. There’s zero room for error here.

Definition of know
a (1) : to perceive directly : have direct cognition of (2) : to have understanding of (3) : to recognize the nature of : discern
b (1) : to recognize as being the same as something previously known (2) : to be acquainted or familiar with (3) : to have experience of
2
a : to be aware of the truth or factuality of : be convinced or certain of
b : to have a practical understanding of
3
archaic : to have sexual intercourse with

That tweet by Bruyneel is all for show. The well-entrenched, well-established system needs us to believe that JV stands in some kind of opposition to the older “dirty guys”. JV is cycling’s Manchurian Candidate. Wish I had the time to explain it today. Steve has always been wise to stay suspicious of JV. Stay gold, Pony Boy. Stay gold!

Steve, do you remember the funky happenings in Spain (I dunno, ten years ago perhaps?) when JV suddenly (and quietly) sacked that one rider and coach? I think they were both from New Zealand. Apparently a few of us with half a brain figured out that JV was directly knowledgeable about certain visits to a certain doctor (hundreds of miles from Girona), when the team already had its own “clean” docs. Let’s just say that there were plenty of things that made us all go HMMMM.

I would bet that Cannondale asked him to find a sponsor to replace Garmin to reduce the Cannondale bill. He couldn’t bring anybody other than Drapac. For their shitty products, Garmin paid his salary and his team stayed alive even if he provided bad publicity to Garmin over the years, so he should be grateful for it.

You all sound pathetic. Still smarting that you were fooled by Lance, so to make sure you won’t be fooled again, you just assume everyone is a doping asshole. Pitiful way to go through life and pitiful way to view a hobby. Why bother?